1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of this invention generally relate to a unified logging and tracing facility. More particularly, an embodiment of the invention relates to a unified logging and tracing service employed in an application server.
2. Description of Related Art
Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) is a tool commonly used in software development today. Generally, J2EE reduces the costs and complexity associated with developing multi-tier enterprise services. Another advantage of J2EE is that it can be relatively rapidly deployed and enhanced as the need arises. J2EE is currently used in many large-scale application development projects for these reasons.
As application development projects grow larger, logging becomes increasingly more important. Logging can be a very useful debugging tool to isolate problems, for example, by tracking each stage of the application being evaluated.
FIG. 1 illustrates a logging mechanism 100 in accordance with the prior art. The mechanism 100 utilizes a logger module 102 to receive logging messages. The logger module 102 provides the logging messages to a handler 104, which directs the logging messages to a formatter 106. The handler 104 determines where the logging messages should be sent. The formatter 106 may then provide human-readable data to a user based on the destination determined by the handler 104.
A major issue with current logging solutions is the determination of how and when messages are logged. The problem is exasperated when a development project involves many modules or developers. This problem is further complicated when different interfaces and/or services are used across the development project modules.